Skepticism

EVENTS

Mike Adams one-ups everyone

We’ve been seeing the spectacle of everyone with a cause blaming the Colorado massacre on every tinge of ideological difference they want to oppose. Now Mike Adams, the chronic wackjob behind the deranged alt medicine site Natural News, brings the lunacy to put everyone to shame. First claim: Adams rides his anti-pharmaceutical hobby horse to make a completely unsupported assertion: “James Holmes may have been involved in mind-altering neuroscience research”.

But that’s just the beginning. The rest is a wacky conspiracy theory fit for a 9-11 Truther: Holmes was set up by the FBI through “drugs, hypnosis, or trauma” to carry out a government-planned terrorist attack, all to the purpose of driving a UN-inspired effort to confiscate all of our guns. And then? “government genocide really kicks in like we saw with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and other tyrants”.

Don’t read the comments. A few brave critics express their incredulity, but the rest are saying, “it does make some sense.”

FBI has a track record of staging similar assaults, then stopping them at the last minute

This is not your run-of-the-mill crime of passion. It was a carefully planned, heavily funded and technically advanced attack. Who might be behind all this? The FBI, of course, which has a long history of setting up and staging similar attacks, then stopping them right before they happen. See four documented stories on these facts:

I saw that early on, and thought that there was (only) one good question that was raised, which is how an unemployed guy like he was could afford all of that stuff.

Later one notes that he had some sort of fellowship or some such thing, which might not explain it fully, but along with some probable family support (they’re at least not poor), it doesn’t seem beyond what might be possible for him.

I wonder if there’s any actual evidence for the schizophrenia idea that seems to be common now, other than the shooting and his absorption with fantasy. The latter’s hardly rare, and while most mass murderers aren’t at the peak of mental health, I don’t think any thus far have had full-blown schizophrenia yet. Those data seem only to allow schizophrenia as a fairly remote possibility for (partial at least) epxlanation.

This doesn’t fit the profile of FBI harassment at all. Information about COINTELPRO (the FBI’s program of harassment and assassination from decades back) is widely available for comparison. The FBI tends to harass political radicals, especially leaders of movements. What important movement was holmes leading exactly? Yeah i thought so.

I don’t know, I think a former Arizona state senator may still have the trophy. In his view – gun control laws were to blame for the shooting. Not that they’re too weak – they’re too strong. Also the victims weren’t “Courages” enough.

government genocide really kicks in like we saw with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and other tyrants

Not that I should be trying to find rationality in Mike Adams’ mind, but did any of the above actually advocate gun control? I have the vague idea that Hitler did (at least for some people), but the others seem much less likely. I mean, would Reagan have been supporting Pol Pot if he’d been a gun control advocate?

Not that I should be trying to find rationality in Mike Adams’ mind, but did any of the above actually advocate gun control? I have the vague idea that Hitler did (at least for some people), but the others seem much less likely. I mean, would Reagan have been supporting Pol Pot if he’d been a gun control advocate?

Pol Pot was 100% for gun control. The Khmer Rouge controlled all the guns.

(only) one good question that was raised, which is how an unemployed guy like he was could afford all of that stuff.

Don’t really know the answer. There’s the student aspect. Perhaps he was on a grant until he dropped out, although that was fairly recent I believe. I read somewhere that his parents live in a “well-to-do” suburb. Perhaps they were supporting him through school so that he had enough discretionary money to pay for all that stuff. And then there’s credit, which he might get through his parents.

You don’t have to read far; the title alone is bizarre. “Colorado Batman shooting shows obvious signs of being staged.”

Well, yes. A guy with painted red hair jumps out from behind a movie screen and apparently refers to himself as “The Joker.” He’d obviously been planning this thing for months. Shows every sign of being “staged.” Melodrama, at that.

Adams claims that the gunman’s ‘strange detachment from reality” could only come from a deranged mind, and mental illness is only caused by drugs, hypnosis, or trauma. I think he’s forgetting a few other causative factors — an absence of mind which itself indicates a strange detachment from reality.

In his world, actual mental illness apparently does not exist. And the sky is pink.

It was a carefully planned, heavily funded and technically advanced attack.

How fucking stupid do you have to be to believe this shit? “Technically advanced”, my left tit.

According to news reports, Holmes legally puchased the guns that he used during the attack from dealers around the Denver area. I don’t know where he got the ballistic armor or the tear gas/smoke bombs/whatever, but one can find this shit for sale with a quick Google search. Don’t believe me? Search “tear gas, military surplus”. I’ll wait.

Fuck, I loathe this shit.

*I will not click the link in the OP– IIRC, Natural News was the site that blamed Adam Yauch’s death on his cancer treatments, turning his passing into a shill for natural “cures”. *spit*

(only) one good question that was raised, which is how an unemployed guy like he was could afford all of that stuff.

He committed a criminal act, and therefore is a criminal. If there’s anything I’ve learned from gun fanatics (other than the fact that they’re all the very model of responsibility who bought their guns hoping never to use them and are crack shots), it’s that every single criminal is a mastermind with their own personal gun factories and well stocked armouries.

I’ve never understood the “We need guns to defend ourselves against the government” thing.

Why would the US government need to take away civilian guns in order to enact a campaign of genocide? They have an umatched arsenal of massively deadly weapons. I’d be interested in knowing the overlap of people concerned about government aggression and people who would consider defence cuts heresy.

Holmes was totally being a Batman villain. Really. he dyed his hair red so everyone would know he’s The Joker. um… except even the most casual Batman fan would know that The Joker’s hair has always been green. Always. since the 40s. Since he stopped being The Red Hood and started being The Joker. [/99% off topic]

I’m no expert on Mike Adams’ posts online, but I’m a regular reader of Orac’s, where Adams’ nuttiness often gets ripped apart for laughs. Adams is a kook of the first order, but does it seem to any of you that his posts are getting kookier as time goes on ?

diane @ #11 — “did any of the above actually advocate gun control?” I’m willing to bet that personal firearms were rare and probably illegal in all those states, and many others. Of course, this idea that citizens with firearms would be effective against the US military is pathetically simplistic.

What many of these people seem to want is to assure their right to carry handguns so they can defend themselves in Aurora theater sort of situation. I heard someone on NPR making that very point a few minutes ago.

Of course, more firearms in that situation—a dark, smokey theater with chaos breaking loose—would have just meant more dead people killed by a lot of different people. Frightened, untrained, and uncoordinated people with the ability to use deadly force in that situation are a formula for many “friendly fire” casualties.

Of course, this idea that citizens with firearms would be effective against the US military is pathetically simplistic.

Yeah, your basic 22 caliber handgun isn’t going to be much use against a tank and even less against a drone. I’ve always felt that the one consolation that would be available if the military took over would be watching all the NRA nuts confront-briefly- the reality of how they would fare against the military in real life.

Wait, aren’t the Natural New types supposed to be leftists? Will Mike Adams eventually lose all his followers if he keeps spouting right wing conspiracy theories? This could be the end of alt med forever! Oh wait, that would require them to show some logical consistency.

Actual comment I saw on another forum, everyone just kinda ignored it:
—
He was a graduate student of neuroscience. A branch of science that the government funds universities to study and experiment, behavioral control. To be used to make people do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. Even change them into different personalities. This guy told the police he was the “Joker”. He had died his hair green! Think, “The Borne Identity”!
—

This is not consistent…It doesn’t add up…None of this checks out…etc., etc., etc.

This goes beyond typically bad conspiracy thinking; most conspiracy theories are spun from agendas, and based on the “conclusion first, evidence later” school of thought. Here we have a situation where the facts are simply not all in yet (which is why “it doesn’t add up…yet“); the evidence for any conclusion is just not there; but, to this Adams moron, that lack of evidence is the evidence.

I don’t know, I think a former Arizona state senator may still have the trophy. In his view – gun control laws were to blame for the shooting. Not that they’re too weak – they’re too strong. Also the victims weren’t “Courages” enough.

Oh yes. A bunch of panicky people shooting in a darkened cinema, while others run around. That’s bound to end well.

For those who like conspiracy theories, the book They’ve Shot the President’s Daughter tells more entertainingly of a tricky plot to legislate away gun rights. Food for thought, um, critical thought, of course.

That article is the biggest pile of dung I have read in a long time and that is saying something on the internet. The author is not only a complete fucking idiot (pardon the expletive), but also an insensitive, paranoid, stupid prick (oops, more expleting).

I know the average Pharyngulite is not someone to ask this question, but for fuck sake Murcans, what is it with some of you and those stupid guns and your completely crack-pot fear of government? I think they are the ones who are on mind altering drugs. I know most of them have no idea what happens outside of the US accept that Canada and Mexico are around somewhere, but there are plenty of countries in the world where people do not have guns and for some strange, completely unexplicable reason, the governments of those countries somehow absolutely fail to turn into genocidal dictatorships. I live in one, never owned or even fired a gun and the government still seems to have forgotten about prosecuting me. Go figure, what?

This whole “if just one person in the theater had had a gun” thing sounds like out-of-control, childish role-paying and wishful thinking to me. It assumes way too much- it’s a second-hand hypothetical to begin with, in assuming that someone else would have (or could have) done what the arguer can only imagine he would have. It assumes that, as pointed out above, the imaginary here wouldn’t have inflicted more casualties in a dark theater than he would have averted; it assumes that Holmes’s body armor had a chink that could have been seen and exploited (or just conveniently ignores the fact that he was wearing it); and, most importantly, it assumes to begin with that our hero would have had the presence of mind, no panicking, to save the day, instead of following what I think would be the most basic instinct of just “get the fuck out” (yes, that’s an assumption on my part, but it seems a reasonable one). Last year, there was a shooting in Tuscon, in an IHOP, in which a witness across the street had a gun…and found himself unable to use it.

“I wish I had shot at him when he was going in the IHOP,” said Swagler, who owns Locals BBQ & Grill. “But when he came at me, when somebody is pointing an automatic weapon at you—you can’t believe the firepower, the kind of rounds coming out of that weapon.

Holmes was set up by the FBI through “drugs, hypnosis, or trauma” to carry out a government-planned terrorist attack, all to the purpose of driving a UN-inspired effort to confiscate all of our guns. And then? “government genocide really kicks in like we saw with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and other tyrants”.

The government confiscated our guns here in the UK a long time ago, in fact they have never very been keen on us citizens having guns of our own. You can legally have one if you want, but you need to make a good case for owing one and jump a few other hoops before you are granted a licence.
Government sponsored genocide hasn’t started or if it has they haven’t come for me (yet).
We don’t often have mass shootings like Aurora, not because we have less crazies than the USA but because it is really fucking difficult to get hold of a couple of AK47s and the ammunition in the UK

Fantasies about throwing said person in a dark theater after arming him with a handgun and having someone in a bullet proof vest shooting an automatic weapon throughout the theater and seeing if he sniped the shooter or peed his pants are, undoubtedly, out of bounds for a polite discussion.

What if they play a lot of paintball? I bet lots of paintball turns them into ninjas.

Where’s erichoag to explain how weekends at the range enhances his bad guy-detecting ESP?

“Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”

What this makes me think is “Then why give people guns?”.

Also, I will have you know that paintball turned me into an SAS soldier combined with a ninja. Just get it right will you. I the had to go to the special Space Lizard camp where using my uncle’s old Lee Enfield to shoot rabbits allowed me to develop my bad guy ESP.

…because it is really fucking difficult to get hold of a couple of AK47s and the ammunition in the UK

Back bar of the Dog and Duck in Brixton, 11:30pm tomorrow night, bring 5 large for the rent and 1 for each clip. Tell them “Big Dave” sent you and ask to be shown “the special selection of Edinburgh shortbread for a belated Brun’s Night celebration”.

Also, I will have you know that paintball turned me into an SAS soldier combined with a ninja. Just get it right will you. I the had to go to the special Space Lizard camp where using my uncle’s old Lee Enfield to shoot rabbits allowed me to develop my bad guy ESP.

I used to play paintball. Usually, friends and I would go to an indoor place with the walls painted all kinds of funky colours, ask them to put in a CD we’d brought with us (Ministry, KMFDM, the like) and we’d run around ramping up our adrenaline until I’d have a Bill Paxton-esque freak out and run screaming through the place getting all kinds of shot.

It kinda make sense if you think about it. You know how Obama really wants to genocide the US for the Muslim elite Shariahs. If you think of the healthcare bill, you’ll see how the death panels would lead to them hiring brainwashed killers through the FBI to kill people.

I don’t get why people don’t see this… Obama is a socialist Muslim and a tiny-baby killer after all.

Since Colorado is a concealed-carry state, the odds are good that some of the moviegoers were armed. Until autopsies are conducted and surgical findings are tallied, we won’t know if all the victims were shot by the murderer himself as opposed to accidentally shot by would-be heroes.

thought that there was (only) one good question that was raised, which is how an unemployed guy like he was could afford all of that stuff.

Banks will often open up substantial lines of credit for medical students knowing that whatever is taken out will be payed back eventually (with interest). I could imagine this guy having a $20000 line of credit, especially if he has well-to-do parents and a good credit rating so far.

ok so all of you who dont believe the government helped aid this tragedy what is your theory on how it was funded?? and further more how did a med student or phd candidate set up a system of explosives so intriquit (sp) that it took the bomb squad hours to figure out how it was set up and this is people who have been doing this for years they also said and i quote “we have never seen anything like this” and how exactly did he get access to the swat equipment and tear gas? please let me know your thoughts

Erik, the guy had money, a brilliant mind, and lots of time on his hands. He was able to buy that stuff because it is legal to buy it in God-Bless-the-second-amendment U.S.A.

I went round and round with a FB friend who is of the hippie generation. I pointed out Occams razor, the fact that schizophrenia hits people in his age group, and the fact that conspiracy theories are almost always wrong… and she said “I know, but I’m a skeptic.”

I see what Adams is doing as comparable to religious activity. He sets up a villain (big pharma,) and offers redemption. If you can’t cure yourself, it’s your own fault. I tend to see the religious mindset popping up everywhere in our society – maybe that’s my own little conspiracy nuttery.

“Why would the US government need to take away civilian guns in order to enact a campaign of genocide?” Why, indeed, when it would be so much simpler to convince a bunch of people that vaccines are harmful, and that we need to cut a lot of CDC spending?http://www.wnd.com/2007/06/42221/

Anyone with money can buy body armor legally. Just about anyone can buy guns, a sacred right in our society according to much of the population.

Clear Out 6oz Tear Gas Grenade – For Sale –

This Clear Out 6oz Tear Gas Grenade is widely used by Police Officers and Military … Order your Tear Gas Grenades from us, we’ve been a trusted Internet supplier since 2002. … You must be over the age of 21 to purchase tear gas products.

I removed the links on where to buy tear gas online. It’s a bit disconcerting that even people as dumb as Eric can buy it with a few keystrokes. I just hope he hasn’t heard of g****e.

In other words, this has all the signs of Fast & Furious, Episode II. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover someone in Washington was behind it all. After all, there’s no quicker way to disarm a nation and take total control over the population than to stage violence, blame it on firearms, then call for leaders to “do something!” Such calls inevitably end up resulting in gun confiscation, and it’s never too long after that before government genocide really kicks in like we saw with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and other tyrants.

It is the strangest thing, but I live in the UK – a country that has famously tight restrictions on gun ownership – and yet the last time I looked there hadn’t been any government genocides here…

ok so all of you who dont believe the government helped aid this tragedy what is your theory on how it was funded??

As noted by others, I think that a look at Holmes’ personal finaces will reveal rather a lot of credit card debt built up in the last couple of months.

and further more how did a med student or phd candidate set up a system of explosives so intriquit (sp) that it took the bomb squad hours to figure out how it was set up and this is people who have been doing this for years they also said and i quote “we have never seen anything like this”

A combination of a man of noted intelligence and access to the internet. Bomb making sites are disturbingly prevalent. Finding them is not hard, and after that all you need is time and perseverance.

and how exactly did he get access to the swat equipment and tear gas?

There are any number of military surplus sites available. You can even buy surplus armoured fighting vehicles if you so desire.

There really is little mystery here unless you choose to invent it. Holmes’ specific motivation in launching the attacks may still be unclear (though some sort of fixation with the ‘Joker’ character may be a possibility), but the means by which someone like him could have procured and learned to use all the materials in question is trivially easy to explain.

Since Colorado is a concealed-carry state, the odds are good that some of the moviegoers were armed.

Cinemark bans guns in its theaters. Aurora, CO backs up the choice of the business to ban guns, making it a criminal offense to carry on their property if they post a no guns sign.

So a law abiding member of the public with a license to conceal and carry a firearm will not carry a firearm into a Cinemark theater for fear of losing their CCW license, or worse.

Apparently Holmes didn’t have the same respect for the theater owner’s decision to not have guns present.

Let’s say guns were totally banned with no black market available to Holmes, yet he still wants to murder a bunch of people at a batman movie. He was a neuroscience PhD candidate, he probably has had his fair share of chemistry lab time. Explosives and accelerants aren’t that complicated to make; he could’ve gone all Cinema Rex and burned the whole place to the ground killing far more than he actually did. Hell, he could’ve waited until the movie got out, then run down people with his car like some jackass did a block away from where I was at the time.

As a society, we need to find a way to effectively identify and treat people like Holmes before they do something stupid. We also need a way to shorten the time someone like Holmes has to do something stupid before meeting resistance.

how did a med student or phd candidate set up a system of explosives so intriquit (sp) that it took the bomb squad hours to figure out how it was set up and this is people who have been doing this for years